


Wiping Out

by Bubblegum_monroe



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Mild Angst, Other, Surfer AU, no proof-reading we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-10-16 10:12:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17547719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bubblegum_monroe/pseuds/Bubblegum_monroe
Summary: He could not see someone for years upon years, and he would still love them.He would still be afraid for them.





	Wiping Out

Despite it all, Asra always watched. He always did. 

Their old friends would pile into Asra’s apartment and sit on the couch in the living room, turn the T.V. on and wait for the livestream to start.    
They’d watch as the camera panned over the water, whether it was grey and choppy or motion picture perfect waves and a sparkling blue. They listened intently for her name, hands grasping hands. Despite it all they  _ supported  _ her. Asra especially. 

They could’ve gone to see it in person, too, of course. But they would never have of done that. 

Asra wasn’t ready. But he had to see this. This was the big moment she’d been dreaming of for years, he had to at least  _ see  _ it if he couldn’t be there for her. 

They sit packed together like sardines. Blankets thrown over laps and bowls of snacks on the armchairs or on the floor. They lean in towards the screen, watching as  _ she  _ paddles finally towards a wave she thinks is big enough. Watch as the new drone system for filming the competitions takes the viewers all in closer, to get a better look at her as she stands up on the board to ride the wave. The wave curling over her before she rides ahead of it, cutting through the water like a god of the ocean. 

The drone moves in, and this is the closest Asra has seen of her face in a long time. Her eyes are still striking and he goes quiet while she’s on screen. She never used to wear her earrings out in the water. But she also used to wear the earrings he gave her. He didn’t recognise those.

The drone seems to stagger in the air, swooping dangerously close to her. Scarcely missing her head. He worries for a moment if it will get caught in her hair, if it’ll hurt her.   
She looks at the drone, frustration clear in her face. Asra lurches forward as it staggers and swoops again, tumbling through the air and she swats it away before it can collide with her. Just before it hits the water it catches her slipping from the board, the wave crashing over her. Before the line cuts, they see the board go up and collide with the side of her face.   
  
The world stops in its tracks for Asra when he sees the board fly up. He knows how bad that injury could potentially turn out, he’s gone with her to hospitals to visit friends who’d been injured out in the water. He’s gone to one or two funerals with her where someone had died due to a surfing accident. Every time he’s prayed that nothing like that ever happened to her.   
When was the last time he prayed for that?

The water crashes around her and the screen cuts back to the cameras on the shore, the livestream cuts as lifesavers rush out on their own boards towards where she’d been.

“Wait-- Why’d the stream cut? Why’d they cut it?” Asra sounds panicked even to his own ears, he tries to switch the channel to a different take but they all seem to have cut the stream. A few news channels were covering the event, but the sight of them makes Asra’s stomach twist. Like all they could carry is bad news. 

“Asra? Asra, she’s going to be fine. There’s no way she got hurt, she’s a professional,” Someone tries to tell him, he can’t tell who. Too focused on the news casters in front of him on the screen. 

“ _ \-- An ambulance is on the way to recover the surfer Eosphorus Dogmatiko after the new drone live stream system caused her to fall off her board--”  _

“Oh no,” Someone else says, and almost immediately Asra gets off the couch. He grabs his keys off the table-- six years and he still hadn’t managed to take her spare inhaler off of the keychain-- by the door and is running for the parking lot before anyone can stop him. Julian stands up to go after him, Nadia catches his arm to stop him. 

His heart is racing inside of his chest as he books it down the stairs and towards the underground parking lot. How bad could that injury be?    
He’s seen her with bruises before, with cuts and aches from fighting or accidents. He’s seen her friends with deep cuts from their boards when things go wrong and he’s terrified of the same thing happening to her.

They’d both been clear that they wouldn’t be in each other’s lives again. That they couldn’t, even if they wanted to.   
There was too much travelling, too much dedication to other more important things. 

His hands shook as he tried to get his key into the ignition, missing the mark a few times before he got it in and started the engine. 

They hadn’t been angry when they had broken up. By then they’d just been resigned to the fact their lives pulled them away from each other more than it pushed them together. They’d gotten over the anger individually where the other couldn’t see.   
Maybe that is where they went wrong.

He didn’t want to think on it now.  

The car started up and as he began to reverse out of his park the radio turned on. Already tuned over to one of the local stations. His grip on the steering wheel going tight when he hears Eos’ name again on the lips of someone who could never be as worried as he was about this. 

‘ _ The professional surfer appears to have of sustained injuries after a drone died during her heat. There are reports of injuries to the head, back, and legs from the board and impact against the seabed-’ _

“Shut up,” an angry mutter comes from him as he jerks the volume all the way down. 

He didn’t even know where she would be. At the beach still? By the sounds of it they should be taking her to a hospital. What if there was water in her lungs? Or permanent damage to her spine?

What if she died?

When he first met Eos, she seemed like the kind of person who was always out of death’s reach.    
Out in the water or fresh out of it she exuded confidence as deep as the ocean she loved. They’d been younger when they’d met, still in high school and she wasn’t given the opportunity to surf professionally yet.

They’d barely noticed each other in school before they’d met at the beach. She’d come out of the water, illuminated gold under the sun and he couldn’t take his eyes off of her.   
She’d noticed the staring, laughed at his embarrassment and didn’t go back into the water. Too distracted with conversation, too invested in meeting  _ him _ . 

They’d been inseparable.   
For a time.

His chest tightened at the memory. Shaking himself out of it and jerking the steering wheel as he almost missed his turn off the main road. He had to stop thinking.    
He can feel the impact of his tears on his shirt. He hadn’t even realised he’d started crying. 

She’s on the other side of the country and he’s wasting time being  _ nostalgic _ .    
He needs to get on a plane, he needs to be there  _ now _ .    
His phone starts ringing in his pocket but he’s busy, he pulls into the airport’s car park and runs. Not caring what happens to his car. Someone could take it, destroy it, but it wouldn’t matter as long as he reached Eos before it was too late.

His phone keeps ringing.    
It’s Julian.   
He runs into the airport, he just needs a last minute ticket. There was always one,  _ always  _ one. He just needs to get onto the plane. The world around him is muted and time doesn’t move right.   
The phone keeps ringing.   
It’s Nadia. Then Muriel.   
He hurries for a desk, any desk. Asks for tickets he’ll pay  _ anything  _ to get on a plane.    
There’s one in an hour, he has to hurry. It’ll take just over three hours to get there. He has to hurry.   
The phone keeps ringing until he turns it off and boards his last minute flight.

He doesn’t remember the last time he was this worried, or if he’s ever been this worried at all. It sends pains through his heart and his shoulders start to shake when they’re in the air. His face buried in his hands to hide it away from anyone nearby. Contorting as he tried to hold back all of his tears and his need to scream at the entire situation.

Asra shouldn’t go to her. They weren’t together, they didn’t  _ talk.  _ Surely she had friends who should go see her instead, even her brother might go see her. Eos wouldn’t want to see an ex-boyfriend.   
There were people who were bothered, and she bothered with. 

They’d spent years together before they parted ways, he couldn’t just ignore it. He couldn’t ignore the fact she is hurt, and certainly couldn’t ignore the voice in the back of his head that kept telling him she’d probably already died or gone into a coma she wouldn’t wake up from.

“She’s not dead,” He mutters to himself, hands moving to the back of his head and gripping his hair. “This is Eos, nothing can kill her.”    
She’d always seemed invincible out in the water. It was her element.

He’d held her as she clutched him and cried, but not once did it seem like she could hold that same weakness when she was out in the water. No one could look at her and guess that she’d been unable to sleep for fear of her constant nightmares and that she could only sleep when she heard  _ his _ voice on the phone.

He wondered how she dealt with her nightmares now.   
She’d always wanted to go surfing at night, maybe that’s what she did.

“Hey, are you alright?”   
A voice startles him out of his thought cycle, whites of his eyes tinged red when he looks up to see a concerned face. His vision is blurry, he can’t tell who it is that’s speaking to him but he talks before his brain can have the chance to tell him to shut up.

“My wi-” Not his wife, he never proposed,  _ why didn’t he? _ “Girl-” They’re not together anymore and he can’t keep  _ forgetting  _ that. “I…” He takes a deep breath and it shudders through him. He swallows, trying to clear the saliva from his mouth. “Someone dear to me was in an accident today, I- I’m flying to see her.”

The stranger offers a hushed collection of condolences before awkwardly ignoring him. Maybe he prefers it that way. Being left alone would be preferable to spilling the beans on how he was running after an ex he’d left so long ago. That she probably wouldn’t even want him there. Want  _ him _ at all.   
Even after all his time, that thought broke his heart. 

The last time they’d spoken to each other had been by chance. A coincidence that they ran into each other.   
They barely said hello before Eos brushed passed him. He’d wanted to reach out, to take her hand. Asra just wanted to know how she was, if she’d been okay because she looked too  _ thin _ . She was too far when realised he just wanted to hear more of her voice. So he let her leave.   
He took it as a sign, to move on.

Yet, here he was on a plane heading right for her as soon as she was in trouble.

It seems he hadn’t moved on after all. Always ready to jump right back into the fire for her. If he were to be honest with himself, there was no place he’d rather be if he was just allowed to see her.

He didn’t need anything in return.

It’s three and a half hours of waiting. Of being unable to check for news and of chastising himself for doing this on a whim.    
‘ _ She wouldn’t want me there,’  _ he thinks to himself as the plane begins to land, ‘ _ She’s moved on. _ ’

He doesn’t even know what hospital she’s in.   
The plane lands and the world is a blur as he rushes out the front, turning his phone back on so he could call a cab or see if there was any news on where she’d been taken. He had plenty of missed calls and texts to open. But all he wanted was to figure out where Eos was. 

A news article told him eventually, and it was all he could do to keep himself patient and wait for a taxi as opposed to running there on foot.

Despite it all, he’s a little excited to see Eos again.   
Perhaps he thinks it’ll be a fairytale reunion, he’ll be there for her in a dark hour and they’ll remember why they loved each other in the first place.   
Perhaps he will have flashbacks of every time she’s laughed, of her ‘I love you’s, and the way her eyes would light up when she found something she thought he’d like.    
And she would have her own flashbacks. Of her favourite moments with him, of how he had made her feel.   
Maybe he just wanted this to be a catalyst to fall in love again. A purely selfish desire. 

“Why am I doing this?” He whispers to himself in the back of the taxi. After all these years how can he still love her  _ this  _ much? After knowing that their lives, their schedules, their goals were forcing them apart. How could he keep  _ loving  _ her when for all he knew she had not done the same? 

This might not change a thing between them, this might make her think worse of him. He’ll risk that to make sure she’s okay, that she knows she’s loved.   
For all he knows her family could be with her, in truth he knows how unlikely that is. Her brother, should they be on good terms this month, was probably off doing his own thing.   
And Eos would rather die than let her parents into the same hospital room as she was. If she’s conscious enough to stop them. 

If she’s alive. 

The thought stabs through his stomach, slicing at his insides. This was  _ Eos _ , she had to be alive. She could face down a shark and survive. She could face down a pack of sharks and come out with bruises at worst.   
That’s what he always thought. Even she wasn’t indestructible it seemed.

He pays the taxi and hurries towards the hospital’s reception. He needs to find out where she is, what room she is in and what is happening to her. His palms getting sweaty as he walks up to the desk. What could he say? That he was an ex-boyfriend who flew across the entire country just to make sure someone he hadn’t spoken to in years was alright? If they were in their right minds they’d call the police.

That leaves a bad taste in his mouth.

He’ll have to make something up. A concerned friend, a family friend. Something reasonable.

He puts his hands on the edge of the desk, palms against the side and fingers bent on top of it. 

“I’m looking for Eosphorus Dogmatiko’s room, I was told she’d be here?” As he says it, he worries that she isn’t that an online article was just guessing at where she would be. Or that she’s told them of him for some reason so that they wouldn’t let him in.

“Your name and identification?” The receptionist holds out a hand, the other tapping on the computer in front of them. He can only hope it’s the pull up the room number.

“Oh- Asra, I’m her bo-” He pauses, and pretends that it’s so he can dig through his pocket for his driver’s license. He just can’t help himself, can he. He can’t let go. But he’s already committed to saying it. “Boyfriend, sorry, here.” He holds the card out. 

“Hm,” The receptionist looks it over and hands it back to him, he holds his breath while he waits. Hoping to pass their inspection. “She’s on the third level, two-eight-five, wing A.”

He books it for the elevator before his mild lie can even have the chance to be called into question. The elevator doesn’t move fast enough. He needs to see her  _ now _ . She has a room, she can’t be dead and the receptionist hadn’t said she was on death’s door either.

“Please, please, please, please,” He murmurs and taps his fingers impatiently against the wall of the elevator. “Come on, move faster.”    
He needs her alive and within his sight like he needs air right now. He feels guilty every time he thinks it, but it’s true. She’s still too important. She’s always been too important. He’s been told that.

The elevator opens and he’s out in less than a second, halfway down the hallway looking for signs to indicate where he should go.

When he finds her room, his breath is taken away as he stands in the doorway.   
Her back is facing away. But he could recognise the black to purple hair anywhere, also the number was on the door which helped tremendously. She’s sitting awkwardly, and he can see through the back of the hospital gown the stitches along her back. They looked bad, just barely centimeters away from where her spine would be. Her ribs showing more than he was used to.

He steps into the room and he sees she’s holding a mirror, sees the slight shake in her shoulders. He can’t see her face. He knows she’s crying.

“Eos?” His voice is soft as he steps closer. He doesn’t know what to say, he didn’t think of it on the way here. Yet, seeing her alive and moving lifted a terrible weight off of his heart. She was  _ alive _ .

She turns partially towards him, mirror clutched to her chest now. As though she can hide whatever she was looking at.   
He almost expected her to get angry. He  _ knew  _ she had a temper sometimes. The way her brother and her argued over the smallest of things showed that. When she was angry she had a mouth that could make a sailor blush. He loved it. 

She isn’t angry. Nowhere near it.   
She sees him and he sees her face start to scrunch up into her crying face which she always claimed she hated. He steps closer and she reaches her hand out for him.

He says nothing and keeps his arms low beneath her injuries when he sits down on the bed beside her and hugs her. Keeping her face mostly turned out of his sight.   
Her fingers clutch at his shirt in a way so familiar it hurts. She’s smaller than he remembers. Or seems that way in this hospital room.

“ _ Asra _ ,” her voice is small, as small as she seems and as small as she feels. There is hurt in her voice, disappointment, heartbreak all aimed at herself. But relief too. Relief in saying his name and holding him.   
This day was supposed to be  _ her  _ day, the day she got to perform at her utmost best in front of her father and show she never needed him to do any of this. Instead, a new way to film the events had ruined that.

“I’m here, habibti,” He murmurs into her ear through her hair. “I’m here, I’m here.” She shudders and shivers against him. He pulls back from her, and he can feel her unwillingness to let go so he won’t see her. His hand moves up to her chin, holding it gently between his thumb and finger. “Show me, let me see.” 

“You don’t want to,” Her own hand moves up to cover half of her face, fingers spread over her eye socket. When she touches her wound, she hisses. Almost retracting her hand before letting it float just above her skin. “You don’t want to see it.” 

He lets go of her chin to take hold of her wrist, not pulling or pushing her hand away but just holding it.    
There’s something she doesn’t want him to see. Obviously, no points for guessing that. Eos has shown him she can be vain when it comes to her own appearance, but scars could heal.   
How bad was it?

“Eos, please,” He hates seeing her like this. She used to project an energy that made her seem bigger than life, louder than anything. But she’s too small now. The light dimmed.   
He understands. She spent years working up to this moment, and now she was injured and faced with someone she’d left behind and been left behind by.   
He shouldn’t have come, but no one else was here.

She looks about ready to cry again, but she takes a deep breath and steels herself. Her hand lowers and she tilts her face towards him.

The original injury, from her board, cut across the left side of her face. The skin discoloured in reds, blues, and purples, the bruising already beginning. Along with some swelling around the wound.   
The worst part might be the way it cut across her eye. Just barely sparing her from blindness or losing the eye completely. It cuts down her jaw, her neck, her collar bone.   
It would scar, with the amount of flesh that’d been cut out by the impact. A permanent reminder of today.

“It’s awful isn’t it?” Her voice cuts through his shock with acrid bitterness. Not aimed at him, he  _ knew  _ when it was after more than a few incidents of him purposely eating her food she was saving. “Just what I always wanted, isn’t it?” 

“Habibti,” He cups her uninjured cheek in his hand and before he can think about it he kisses her forehead. His heart skipping when he realises what he did. “I-”

“ _ Six _ years,” She interrupts, pulling back from him and wrapping her arms around herself. Knees coming up to curl slightly, but by the expression on her face the wounds on her legs and back protest that action. “ _ Six  _ years and  _ this  _ is how you get to see me, bruised and bloodied and a fucking  _ failure. _ ” 

“Eos, that’s not-”

“Don’t even start, Asra, how many months did we spend apart when we  _ were  _ together for me to even start on my way to get to  _ here _ , along with those six  _ fucking  _ years without seeing you at  _ fucking  _ all just to end up wiping out?” He sees her fingers tighten and clench. Gripping at herself, nails digging in. He brings his arms around her shoulders and neck, pulling her against him.

Yes, there had been months of barely seeing her and having her main focus be her surfing career. And he’d  _ hated  _ those months. He didn’t need all of her attention, just  _ some  _ of it.

“I fucked it all up. I wasted too much time on this fucking  _ cunt  _ competition shit. I lost my friends, I lost all my other opportunities, I lost  _ you _ ,” She takes a deep breath and her arms unwind from herself. Hands instead just gently pinching the hemline of his shirt. “I lost you and now you’re here or I’ve got a  _ real  _ bad concussion. I have  _ nothing  _ to show for everything I lost. Nothing but some dumbshit scar.” She huffs, shaking her head slightly. “I don’t even know why you’re here, or how you’re here. You’ve got better things to do, Asra.”

He runs his hands through her hair, carefully detangling it before he responds. 

“I was watching the livestream of the competition,” He’d been waiting for it the entire week, oddly nervous, excited, and hesitant all at the same time. “I saw what happened and I just- I knew I had to make sure you were alright.” She pulls back from him, and as he speaks he plays with her hair. Unable to not be familiar enough to touch her like this. “I just…  _ Christ _ , Eos, I thought you might be  _ dead _ . I got on a plane and flew here, I knew I just couldn’t live with myself if I stayed away after seeing what I did.” 

Her expression falls as he talks. Moves on from bitter and anger at herself. For the first time in a very long time, he sees in her eyes the exact look she gave him every time he said he loved her. 

“I’m alive,” She says and closes her eyes. When she smiles, he sees the beginning of the light she had start to come back. “You were watching me.”

“I always watch you.”

Six years, and it was too easy to fall back into simple small touches. Her hand rests on his thigh, fingers just creeping on the inside of his leg and he brushes hair away from her face, twisting it around his finger.   
He should stop touching her, he shouldn’t be so close or even be here at all.

“I always watch you,” He says again, voice soft. “Every single time.” 

He doesn’t know who leans forward first, but the kiss they share is soft and chaste. He can taste her blood when he licks his lips after they pull away, but it’s the least of his concerns.    
They don’t know what to say to each other after that, they just wait in silence. 

It’d been six years since they’d last seen each other, both of them knew exactly why it hadn’t worked out the last time they were together.   
But they still have feelings for each other. Six years and not a sign of life from either one, and they still loved each other.

He walks her out of the hospital when she’s discharged. They don’t hold hands, but her little finger links with his and right now it’s the closest they should get for a while.

“They’re probably worried about you, y’know,” She says finally as they wait for a taxi to arrive. He doesn’t say anything. He knows he should’ve told someone, Muriel or Nadia, that he was going on a spontaneous trip across the country. And judging by the texts and calls he’d gotten they were worried, or pissed, probably both. “You should tell them where you are.”

“I know,” He rubs the back of his neck with his free hand, guilt building in his stomach. “I’ll get you home first.” 

They stand there until the taxi comes. Not daring to say a word more. Afraid that if they do, they’ll commit to something they realistically can’t.   
Asra doesn’t want to tear Eos away from her surfing.   
Eos doesn’t want to pin him down when he’d rather be somewhere else.   
Just like last time.

They keep quiet until they’re at her apartment door, she reaches to open it but she hesitates. Hand shaking slightly.

“Am I going to see you again after this?” She asks, keeping her face bowed and body towards the door. 

“What?”

“I- Asra, am I going to see you again after you go? You came here to make sure I didn’t die, and I’m  _ fine _ . I- I don’t want to think that- I don’t want to think that I’ll have you again just to not see you again when you go back  _ home _ .”    
He reaches out, hesitating before he wraps his arms around her waist. Avoiding touching her back but hugging her all the same.    
When they’d broken up, despite his resignation to it, he was devastated. He wanted to take it all back, but she’d seemed just as sure about it as he thought he’d been. He’d wanted a second chance, and didn’t get one for six years.

Now he got one, but only because she’d gotten hurt.   
What if she hadn’t? Would he have just watched it like any other competition, looking on from the sidelines and never taking the leap to see her?   
Or, what if he had taken the chance to go see her, would it have been like this?

He could take another chance right now. To solidify it all, to show that he could put the effort in again. He could let her know right now that he was going to show her that he loved her again. The idea of it frightens him as much as it titillates him. 

He retracts an arm and puts his hand on her shoulder before spinning her around.    
He hasn’t had the chance to kiss her properly in six years, and the one at the hospital hadn’t been enough. Their teeth clash when he kisses her and he shivers when he feels her tongue against his.    
She’s crying again, he can taste the saltiness of her tears. Her nails dig into his shoulders to keep him close.

He doesn’t know if this will last like he wants it to.   
But he wants to try loving her again, he wants to do it properly this time.

And she does too.

 


End file.
